Why are people slow?

     I currently live in Saint Louis, Missouri. There are approximately 3 million people in the city and surrounding areas simply known as Saint Louis. With my former job as an alarm installer, and various travels in my life I pose this question tonight. Why are half the people in the United States so damned slow? Case in point: I went to the grocery store on Saturday, I did my shopping at a normal pace and ended up with less than 20 items. I decided that going through the "You Scan" line would be a "good idea". Please picture the following scene in your minds. There are four checking stations total, 2 left, 2 right. They are stacked so that there are 2 lanes with the "You Scan" Queen watching over us all laughing, thinking "Thank God I don't have to check them out." The left sides both lanes have people with cartloads of groceries and the Queen is reading a magazine. The Right side offers hope, at the far end is a woman who is scanning the last of her items, and a young mother with 3 items in her hand. This young mother has decided that bringing her son to the store and letting him roam free is a "good idea" The entire time I wait this child is messing with her so that she stops, looks at the boy, and tells him to quit. He then proceeds to run his hands all over the candy bars and gum in the "You know you really want this crap" stand. My seeming salvation stand in the woman who has removed her wallet from her bra, and has swiped her card. I glance at my phone, it is 12:30 PM. The child has begun dancing and the mother walked over to the Queen to barter over the fresh chicken that is leaking blood and chicken juice on the floor. The Bra Toter has swiped her card and is looking at the video screen. The time is 12:32. The child has begun to poke his fingers INTO the candy bars while the mother attempts to check out using her food stamps. Queen has gone back to her magazine, and the Toter... she has pressed the button and is looking at her receipt. The time is 12:35. The child is frantically getting his mother to look at him, and when she does, he waves. She goes back to throwing her things around and speaking, complaining of her woes as a single mother. The Toter has finished looking at her receipt and begin to slowly fold it into her wallet where she looks at it for a time, and returns the wallet to her Bra. The time is 12:40. As the Toter begin to leave the child is standing in the middle of the lane staring at me as if I had horns, picking his nose. I say "Excuse me" and the child looks. The mother looks at me and barks "It'll be just a damn minute," and begin to grumble about white people. The time is 12:45. As I get to the check out terminal, it takes me 2 minutes to ring out 13 items and pay. I leave the store at 12:47. 17 minutes I waited in a "fast checkout" lane.
     Ladies and Gentlemen. I fully ascribe to the speed of modern convenience. I like being able to get in and get out. If you are a person, who stops to turn, goes slow for no reason, acts as if they are owed something by the world, or feel like you are the only one that matters. FUCK YOU!!! I understand that many elderly move slow. I have no issue with this. They have earned that privilege by simply living as long as they have. If you are 35, and so fat you have to use one of those damned electric carts to get around, hog up the entire aisle and cause a major inconvenience for me because your fat ass wont walk. THAT I have issue with. I have issues with people who don't realize that you can drive faster than 2 M.P.H and make a turn. I have issue with people who take up an entire ANYTHING to themselves, so nobody else can get through when all it takes it a simple step forward or back. Do I feel I am owed anything by society? Not at all. Do I feel like I'm some King that people need to move for automatically? No. I do feel, very openly and plainly that society needs to take a step back and return to the days of people showing a little respect. Say..around 1950 without race discrimination. People cared and did what they could because that is what was RIGHT. It was not dog eat dog. It was very much, we are Americans, or whatever nationality, we are many people who live to protect and serve for all, as one.
     Sadly, Nobody gives a shit anymore about anyone else. I know I write this as a way to vent. I know few if any read this, but it's out there. Do I expect to start a revolution, but if one person stumbles across this, and one person can bring the stick of "I'm more special than you" out of their ass. Then I have done my job, but don't be surprised if some day, a very large Irishman walks up to you and removes that stick by force.

A Saturday Relaxing

I just paid off my truck yesterday and decided that today I wanted to kick back and think about the last 7 years of my life. Yes... 7 years to pay off a vehicle that was on a 6 year note. 12 extensions to the loans. Numerous letters explaining that if I didn't get them money soon, they would re-posses my vehicle, but there is it. My truck is a little beat up, but I treat it like a truck. I think back about what those seven years entailed, Failed marriage, failed friendships, failed life it would seem, but yesterday there is a Light. As I begin to drag myself out of the hole that was created when two children decided they wanted to be grownups. I'm beginning to see the end, and the promise of a new beginning. I think now, to the woman I love very deeply. My little apartment that is sparsely decorated, but everything within is mine. I look at the "final amount due" on the Bills that piled up from before and the totals are going down, little bits at a time. While I'm never sure my credit score will ever recover fully, they lie about not going back beyond seven years. I do know that life is beginning to look up. I do know that I will always fight the depression that was brought to fruition by trying to take life on my shoulders when I was not ready. I know that when the time comes to buy that next vehicle or home, the lender will look at me funny and there will be that tense time of... will they say yes or no... why haven't they called yet... etc. It is easy to sit back and look, saying I should have..would have..could have. Everything that has happened made me the man I am today. Good, Bad, and Ugly. Can I go back and change any moment of my past, No. Would I if I could... I don't know. I would have to wonder then, if I changed even something as small as when I ate lunch on a day. What would my life be like today? Would I be rich, broke, in a hospital, dead, or would I just be the same me as I am now? In retrospect, everything that has happened to me, has happened for some reason. For those reasons. I am here now typing words in a blog about nothing really. My thoughts and ideas about my life and perceptions. Do I have regrets in my life? Yes, but I would be hard pressed to find anyone who has none. So, from here I will continue relaxing this Saturday as a celebration. I'm celebrating the fact, that something I didn't want in the first place, is now Mine.